A warning for listeners that this series contains graphic details,
including references to murder and rape.
Hi everyone, it's Olivia Jenkins here,
the host of the latest season of Hunting Justice
and we're back with a quick update episode for you all
with some developments that have happened in court.
So if you haven't caught up on our first six episodes,
make sure you go back and hit play on those.
So you don't get any spoilers in this episode
or everything that we are going to discuss in this episode,
So first we wanted to update you about some proceedings
in the Melbourne Supreme Court this week.
If you have listened to the series so far,
you would have heard us say that Perry Corumbless,
the man charged with murdering Suzanne Armstrong
and Susan Bartlett in Collingwood in 1977,
was also initially charged with the rape,
but that rape charge was struck out by a magistrate
during a committal hearing,
which is where it was determined that he would stand trial
This week he returned to court,
but he returned to the Supreme Court
where the rape charge was reinstated
in addition to the two murder charges.
We can't tell you about all of the specifics
out of that hearing this week,
but what we can say is that the rape charge,
which was referred to in the 70s as Colonel Knowledge,
is back on Perry's indictment.
Now this development comes a few months
after the committal hearing you might have heard
a bit about throughout the series so far,
where a magistrate determined that Perry would stand trial
That rape charge was initially struck out
at Perry Corumbless's committal hearing late last year.
My colleague Ash Argoon covered this week's most recent hearing
for the Herald Sun, and she's reported
that previously during the committal hearing for Perry,
the court heard discussion over whether the alleged rape occurred
before or after Sue Armstrong died.
And back then, there was no alternate charge
such as interfering with the corpse,
available in the 70s.
And so the magistrate decided to dismiss that charge.
But as Ash reported this week,
it's understood that the Colonel Knowledge Charge
was filed on indictment paperwork to the Supreme Court
just in the last few weeks.
Perry's likely to return to court over the next few months
for a series of administrative hearings,
including filing formal defense for that rape charge
and pre-trial hearings,
because no date has officially been set for his trial.
So this might be the last that you hear from us for a little while,
but we will bring you all of the updates on the case
In the meantime, if you want all of the news about this case
and crime in Melbourne,
you can go to heraldsun.com.au
or if you're interested in checking out our video documentary series
about these murders,
you can go to huntingjustice.com.au
and they'll be posted on YouTube.
